Afghan Court Confirms 5 Death Sentences in Rape Case That Led to Outrage

KABUL, Afghanistan — An Afghan appeals court confirmed death sentences on Monday against five of the seven defendants in a notorious robbery and rape case, despite their claims that their confessions were extracted through torture.

For the other two defendants, the court found insufficient evidence to justify the death penalty, so it reduced their sentences to 20 years’ imprisonment.

The seven men were accused of dressing in police uniforms and stopping a caravan of cars returning from a wedding in the Paghman district, less than half an hour’s drive from Kabul; robbing the occupants; and raping four of the women by the roadside.

The Kabul police department was under enormous public pressure to solve the case, which prompted national outrage and revulsion. But women’s rights activists have noted that the outrage was less an expression of concern about the women’s welfare than about the perceived dishonor to the victims’ husbands.

That pervasive sense of male privilege — to the degree that Afghan women and girls are still commonly seen as marital property, and are frequently subject to so-called honor killings even when they are the victims of sexual attacks — has remained despite efforts to reform Afghanistan’s legal code to enshrine more protections for women.

Almost from the start, questions have been raised about whether the suspects were being railroaded by the government. President Hamid Karzai promised to approve the death penalty against the men even before their two-hour trial on Sept. 7.

The entire case against them rested on their confessions and on their identification by victims at a police lineup. But all seven men said that they had been severely beaten by police officers until they confessed to the rapes, and that the police had told the victims whom to identify in a lineup that included no one other than them.

“When the lady who picked me out first came in, she put her hand on the chief of the criminal investigation division, and then on the cook,” Qaisullah, one of the five condemned men, said at the appeals court hearing on Monday, referring to two police employees who would have been in plain clothes. “Then they showed me to her, and she picked me.” Like many Afghans and several of the other defendants, Mr. Qaisullah uses only one name.

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Qaisullah was one of the defendants sentenced to death in a rape case in Kabul.CreditShah Marai/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Human Rights Watch said the identification procedure was not a lineup but a “showup,” in which the police indicated to the victims who the suspects were.

The five men whose death sentences were confirmed on Monday did not deny being part of the gang that carried out a robbery at the scene, but they said they had nothing to do with the rapes.

“After that beating, I would have confessed to adultery with my mother,” said Azizullah, one of the five men, describing at the hearing his interrogation by the police. Another, Mohammad Nazar, said that he had acted only as a lookout and that the police had beaten him for five days until he confessed. “I never even saw the women taken from the cars,” he said through sobs at the hearing.

Mr. Azizullah’s wife and sister were in the audience at the hearing on Monday, wearing blue burqas. “Why are the victims not present here?” the sister, Habiba, asked the court. “Why are none of their relatives here? You should have strong proof when you are handing down death sentences.”

The two men whose death sentences were reduced to prison terms testified that they had been in the process of committing a separate burglary when the police arrested them, and then had been beaten until they confessed to involvement in the rapes. One of them, Saifullah, said the police had forcibly put a uniform on him before photographing him to support their case against him. The other five defendants confirmed to the appellate judge, Atiqullah Aqiq, that they did not know the two burglars.

There was little sympathy in the crowded courtroom for any of the accused. Asadullah Wahdat, head of the legal aid office that provided three lawyers to defend the men, said that all three had received death threats and that one had withdrawn from the case as a result. Mr. Wahdat said the lawyers had not been given the legally required seven days to prepare their defense.

The appeals court heard testimony from two policemen and from two women who said they had recognized some of the accused when their trial was televised, and accused them of having robbed their homes at gunpoint in four previous episodes.

“The Paghman case shows how abusive and dysfunctional the Afghan legal system remains, not only for suspects but for women who are survivors of sexual violence,” Phelim Kine, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

“The public reaction was very much because of the men’s honor,” said Wazhma Frogh, executive director of the Research Institute for Women, Peace and Security. “The arrests were to save the honor of the men, not the women. The men of the country felt dishonored.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A6 of the New York edition with the headline: Afghan Court Confirms 5 Death Sentences in Rape Case That Led to Outrage. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe